Techbargains: Camcorder Blog Posts

In April, Cisco announced that it was halting production of the entire line of Flip Video cameras, leaving many users wondering whether any videos they stored on the FlipShare service would be eliminated as well. According to the New York Times, this question has been answered; As of yesterday, May 12, any videos will expire from the service after 30 days. That should give users a month to save and download any videos they want to keep from Flipshare before they're instantly deleted. However, videos shared to Facebook and YouTube won't be eliminated. Additionally, Cisco announced that it will provide technical support to all Flip cameras until December 31, 2013. Users will hopefully find a replacement camera by then.

The Cisco Flip may have recently been killed off, but it would appear that Olympus is gearing up to take the portable HD video camera's place with the introduction of the LS-20M. The handheld camera, which was announced yesterday, will shoot and edit 1080p video while recording 24 bit/96 hHz Linear PCM stereo sound through two condenser microphones. Users can view content that they're shooting via a 2 inch LCD screen, and immediately below that is a 1.46 inch LCD data screen that provides additional data about the audio levels and battery life of footage. The LS-20M will come with a 2GB SD card, and can take up to 32 GB cards for extended filming. It will cost $299.99 and should hit stores in June.

It appears that the ultraportable camcorder market just got a bit smaller, as Cisco announced today that it was eliminating the Flip Video camera franchise as part of a larger restructuring effort. The press release that Cisco issued stated that Flip would be closed and "current FlipShare customers and partners" would be supported with a transition plan, although details about this plan were not immediately available. This is just part of a refocusing into core business priorities, which include networking, video and network architectures, which is much more business enterprise focused.

According to John Chambers, Cisco chairman and CEO, "We are making key, targeted moves as we align operations in support of our network-centric platform strategy. As we move forward, our consumer efforts will focus on how we help our enterprise and service provider customers optimize and expand their offerings for consumers, and help ensure the network's ability to deliver on those offerings."

Along with ceasing all production of Flip Video products, the move will eliminate 550 jobs in the refocusing efforts. Many analysts point to the rise in smartphones that can record video in 720p as one of the key factors affecting the elimination of the Flip Video brand.